The Mobile Symphony Orchestra prepares for their 2006 Independence Day symphony, a pops concert at The Wharf.
More accustomed to the 2000 seat Saenger Theatre, or to the Mobile Civic Center, the orchestra is looking forward to playing before an audience expected to be fully five times larger.
If all goes according to plan they hope to make this the first in an annual series of Fourth of July celebrations.
Orange Beach Overture
Cue the fireworks.
On Tuesday the bus and caravans from Mobile and Pensacola will hit the road for Orange Beach, where the Mobile Symphony Orchestra will perform an Independence Day pops concert in The Wharf's spanking-new amphitheater.
The concert honoring our nation's 230th birthday begins at 8 p.m. (See information box.)
A few hours later, it won't matter whether the audience was 10,000 music-loving maniacs or an assortment of holiday revelers who showed up for the fireworks.
This is a celebratory holiday, not a solemn observance, and despite the near certainty of sweltering temperatures and a highway (Alabama 59) jammed with holiday commuters, the 67 musicians, music director Scott Speck and members of the orchestra's extended family will be greeted enthusiastically.
If the weather holds, the Fourth of July could be some enchanted evening.
"We're all excited by the potential to reach such a huge and diverse crowd," Speck says. "The Mobile Symphony has become more and more well known in the community, but this will be our biggest audience ever.
"The amphitheater ... holds roughly five times the capacity of our home venue, the Saenger Theatre. The audience comes from all over. We'll have residents of Alabama and Florida, other people here on vacation, and still others who are simply enticed by an exciting fireworks display."
Speck says the concert is an opportunity for the orchestra, "and our greatest responsibility is to present a performance so captivating, so compelling, so much fun, that all these people will want to hear the Mobile Symphony again and again."
Selections include John Williams' "Star Wars" theme, Henry Mancini's "Pink Panther," the "Thunder and Lightning Polka" by Strauss, plus the fourth movement from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, Copland's "Hoedown," the "Washington Post March" by Sousa and an "Armed Forces Medley." Read more